Nov 26 2022
By:
Scott Sumner
George Selgin has another excellent post in a long series on the Depression and WWII. This one points out that the economy did pretty well during the late 1940s, despite widespread forecasts of a major post-war depression: What lay behind this remarkable achievement? The proximate answer was a revival of private sp...
Nov 25 2022
By:
David Henderson
Bottom line: Real interest rates don't reset on bonds you've bought; inflation adjustments reset, even on already purchased bonds, every 6 months. At pickleball a week ago, a number of us got talking about U.S. Treasury I-Bonds. My wife and I have each bought our quota of $10,000 annually for 2021 and 2022. A pickle...
Nov 25 2022
By:
Kevin Corcoran
David Henderson has a couple of recent posts analyzing possible upcoming regulatory changes affecting gig workers. Reading his posts triggered the little memory imp that lives in the back of my brain, and brought to mind an additional point worth making. At the outset, however, I do want to give some credit to the V...
Nov 25 2022
By:
Pierre Lemieux
Suppose an eccentric entrepreneur is raising money for a new venture. It could be a sort of metaverse hula hoop or some revolutionary way of financing a public good (in the economic sense) or whatever. He tells potential adult investors something like: You know I am an eccentric genius. If my idea works, you and I w...
Nov 24 2022
By:
Scott Sumner
Why do people vote for bad candidates? In some cases, they may be electing the lesser of evils. But there are many instances where voters clearly prefer bad politicians. In a recent article on the political situation in Argentina, the Financial Times makes this observation: “A year ago Larreta was well out front a...
Nov 24 2022
By:
Veronique de Rugy
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! As we sit at home, digesting our weekend’s many heavy meals, I figure it’s a good time to talk about work and some of the issues facing the younger generation and their not-so young bosses. For instance, the new owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, is under harsh criticism for his memo to Tw...
Nov 23 2022
By:
David Henderson
On Monday, November 21 (my birthday, by the way), I gave a talk at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at California State University Monterey Bay. The topic: "How Economists Helped End the Draft." It wasn't recorded this time but I did give the talk at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfre...
Read this Pierre Lemieux Book Review:
Oct 1 2022
By Pierre Lemieux
A Book Review of The Mirage of Social Justice, by Friedrich Hayek. Volume II of his Law, Legislation, and Liberty1 Published in 1976, The Mirage of Social Justice was the second volume of Friedrich Hayek's trilogy Law, Legislation, and Liberty. My review of the first volume, Rules and Order, appeared on Econli...
Nov 23 2022
By:
Vance Ginn
Many cities across the nation are facing a fiscal crisis. While pandemic-related problems that were self-induced or otherwise play a part, many of these issues have plagued cities for a long time. A serious cultural shift concerning finances among local governments is critical if people want to flourish in cities. ...
Nov 22 2022
By:
David Henderson
From early in my time as an adult, I've said hi to and smiled at strangers on the street. In a large percentage of cases, I've gotten friendly smiles or nods back. That interaction with people has been a big part of my life for almost 50 years. Unfortunately, when Covid and the lockdowns and masking came along, that...
Nov 22 2022
By:
Scott Sumner
There are times when it seems like the entire world is moving toward authoritarian nationalism. Thus it is refreshing to see a right wing party that still seems to have a few libertarian instincts. The Economist has an article on Pierre Poilievre, the new leader of Canada's Conservative Party. In some respects, his vie...
Nov 22 2022
By:
John Phelan
On November 4, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the U.S. economy added 261,000 jobs in October, beating estimates of 193,000. Isn’t this good news? Not according to Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, who said “That tells me we have more work to do to try to cool down t...
Nov 21 2022
By:
Kevin Corcoran
In a recent article for CNN, Kara Alaimo voices some concerns about speech and social media. Though she makes frequent use of the term “free speech”, what she’s really worried about is unmoderated speech - that is, speech which isn’t restrained by the platform hosting the speaker. To be clear, I believe ...
Nov 21 2022
By:
Scott Sumner
Economics textbooks describe at least three types of policy lags---the recognition lag, the implementation lag and the impact lag. But even that may not be enough, as the impact lag is a rather ambiguous concept, and might include two separate lags:1. There is the lag between when a central bank takes concrete steps to...
Nov 21 2022
By:
David Henderson
Comprehensive evidence implies a higher social cost of CO2 is a recent article in Nature which claims to calculate how much worse off humans will be for each additional ton of CO2 released. The costs are summed over a period of almost three hundred years, from now to 2300. As best I can estimate from Extend...
Nov 20 2022
By:
Pierre Lemieux
The possible shortages—not metaphorical, but literal shortages—of natural gas and electricity this winter in New England are the product of our own politicos, their protectionism, price controls, dirigisme, and populism. I already mentioned the issue in a September EconLog post. A Financial Times story just provide...